Wednesday, June 15, 2016

I started writing Stations in the winter. I had just installed a solo exhibition and with that came a familiar feeling of exhaustion and doubt. Almost every night, I found myself watching a Youtube video from the movie Christine F of David Bowie performing Station to Station. Over and over. In the film, Bowie enters slowly in red, a sweeping green curtain behind him. The song begins with a mechanical grind, then a beat like a giant's plodding steps. There is smoke in the air and in the words. I was fascinated by its pageantry.

Here are we, one magical moment, such is the stuffFrom where dreams are wovenBending sound, dredging the ocean, lost in my circleHere am I, flashing no colorTall in this room overlooking the oceanHere are we, one magical movement from Kether to Malkuth

There are you, you drive like a demon from station to station

And with the words are gestures. Gestures of power, and magic, and beauty, as the song swells towards its manic conclusion.

I took screen shots and collected them in a file. And I started writing a poem for each song of Station to Station. Then David Bowie was gone. I watched the video over and over in tears. I finished the poems, did a reading of the poems, and put them aside.

The last two weeks, I taught a letterpress workshop at Penland School of Crafts, it was called "Text as Image, Type as Thought." The focus was on the visual and conceptually potential of working with text. I worked with the most wonderful group of students, and their endless energy is what inspired me to finish this book.

Recently, three of the poems were published in the The Found Poetry Review's special issue of David Bowie inspired poetry. You can read those here.

Each poem is written using Google Translate and a song from Station to Station as sources of ideation. The covers are letterpress printed, the inside of the book is are single color photocopy prints. There is an edition of ten in blue, and ten in gray. This is the blue edition.